What's in YOUR book pile?

Beside the bed, on the coffee table, in the bathroom, on your desk...most of us have a book pile somewhere. It might be books we've already read or it might be a stack of books we want to read. Take a picture of your book pile and share what you've been reading or what you plan to read!

(Images courtesy of Flickr CC)

Table 3: PhotoStory

Disclaimer: Products posted herein are for practice and NOT meant as final products.

I used PhotoStory when I did my podcast in 23 Things, but my practice with it was very brief. I did not add any music to it, only narration. This was my chance to work with the music part of it. I uploaded some pictures of a nice young man I know and set it to music. I used music from the "Sample Music" folder because it's what was there. Obviously, I wouldn't choose this music for this PhotoStory normally. I tried to go back tonight and find something good to use from Incompetech (and then I could edit it to be "just right" in Audacity), but every time I tried to go to Incompetech, Internet Explorer would stop responding and I'd have to force that window to shut. Hmmm... So here is the "work in progress":



(And thank goodness for the autosave feature here at Blogger because sometimes I do crazy things like hitting the "Back" button on my browser when I don't really mean to!)

****UPDATE**** I finally got to Incompetech, so the PhotoStory you see here has music provided by www.incompetech.com.

Table 1: Image Manipulation

Disclaimer: Products herein are for practice and NOT meant as final products.

Image manipulation is probably the area where I have the most practice. I've been putting pictures in PowerPoints and resizing them with Irfan view for a long time now. What I didn't realize until now is that Discovery Education has an image gallery in addition to the video streaming aspect. Duh! I also finally figured out how to determine which are the "okay to use" images in Flickr Creative Commons. When I did 23 Things, I was still a little confused about all the different rights attributes and which photos were okay and exactly how to credit them. Now I know that as long as it's "noncommercial" and lets me choose a size and actually download, it's okay. (I was right clicking as doing "save as" before, and so I'll admit, I think I used some photos I shouldn't have. Eek!)

The image generators were a bit frustrating. It seemed as though when I'd click on a type, it would send me to another page where I'd just have to choose all over again. Some of the links didn't make it past the district firewall. I finally found a magazine cover that I thought would be funny with the picture I chose (the Constitution), but I either I failed to save it, or I didn't pay attention to WHERE I saving it because it's not in the folder it should be in. (It was Wrestling Magazine. Get it? We wrestle over the meaning of the Constitution all the time...) So here is another one I did with it on the cover of Time Magazine. B-O-R-I-N-G.



It IS worth noting that when I uploaded the image here, Blogger automatically placed it at the top of the page. I had to highlight it, cut it (using ctrl-x) and paste it where I wanted it (using ctrl-v).

****UPDATE*****

I found my other magazine cover! I'd made a folder for it all on its own. The lesson here folks is to PAY ATTENTION when you save. Another example? When I saved my PhotoStory I have in my PhotoStory post, the wonderful Sherri M. was walking past our table. Someone said, "Hi, Sherri!" just as I was typing the name of my file for saving...and what did I call it without even realizing it??? Sherri.wp3! That is NOT what I intended to call it. Go ahead, laugh. I did. :-)

Anyway, here is the Wrestling mag cover:

Table 2: Audio Manipulation

Disclaimer: Any product posted herein is solely practice and NOT intended as a finished product.

Number One on the checklist was "Turn on laptop microphone and record using laptop microphone." I was a little confused. I'm guessing laptop microphone means the built in microphone (that picks up a voice, but also all the background noise. See my podcast in Thing 21, where you can hear a doggie having a bad dream in the background...hehe), but what application were we supposed to use to record? Hmmm..skipped this one.

I moved on to Audacity. I eavesdropped on the people around me and heard at least four people mention that for them, Audacity didn't seem user friendly. I've used it and been okay with it, but then I haven't done really advanced projects with it yet. I recorded myself reciting a part of Robert Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and played it back. Yes, I'm finally getting used to hearing my own voice and I guess it's not so so bad. :-P

Then I checked out Incompetech (www.incompetech.com). This was new to me, but yea, I really like it. It's a music download site, but what I thought was great is that you can choose music by "feel" (mood), such as "ominous," "lighthearted," or "triumphant." Wouldn't it be fun to have students choose background music for parts of their favorite books? And at the same time, they are learning about mood and being exposesd to mood words. It's awesome! Dowloading is easy, too, except the day I did this, I kept getting a "page not displayed" error, but it magically solved itself. Probably just a temporary network or server glitch. I imported a piece of music into Audacity and edited it so that I had just the section of it I wanted and it was the length I needed.

Table 4: Video

today our library professional development was intensive technology training...an extension or practice of more 23 Things things, but also some new stuff for me. This post is part of that staff development. Here is my disclaimer: any product posted herein is not meant as a final product, but instead as a "work in progress."

The Table 4 task was video. The first thing on our checklist was downloading a video from TeacherTube and posting it here. I downloaded a cool video of "Ma and Pa Kettle" math (thanks to A. Reynolds from Terrace Elementary for pointing me to it!) and here it is:



Then, on to YouTube, which of course, we couldn't access from inside the district. I think that's a shame. Yes, I know there is lots of inappropriate material on YouTube, but there is also lots of great stuff. It would be like banning search engines because kids might search something inappropriate. Besides, I guarantee any kiddo with Internet access at home knows the ins and outs of YouTube. I know elementary students who can record their own video, edit it with MovieMaker, and upload it to YouTube! I think we're remiss in teaching students to be responsible consumers and producers of information. Okay, okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

The next thing I did was play around with MovieMaker. I imported my own video that I took of my son's dwarf hamsters with my Flip. Import was successful...EXCEPT for the audio. For some reason, the audio, my narration, was much too fast after the import (but the video speed remained "true"). It was actually kind of funny because it seemed as if the hamsters were doing the "talking." :-) I played around with "cutting and splicing" and transitions. It will be fun to play with MovieMaker some more. Oh, when I tried to save, though, it was VERY slow. In fact, I thought it had frozen because I'd waited about 5 minutes and it still hadn't saved. Lo and behold, though, I left it running through lunch, and when I returned, SHAZAM! It had finished saving. Woo hoo! I'll be interested to see if that is a problem that continues.